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Radar Data #12
by Lytton Smith
It was in the absence of light
as when near new moon and
no moonlight; as when a part
of a picture is in shadow (as
opposed to a light); as when
in the condition of being
hidden from view, obscure,
or unknown--in concealment,
or else without knowledge
as regards to some particular;
and of the weather, season,
air, sky, sea, etc., characterized
by tempest; in times, events,
circumstances etc. subject to
tempers; inflamed, indicative,
predictive, or symbolical
of
strife (harbinger of coming
trouble)-a period of darkness
occurring between one day &
the next during which a place
receives no light from the sun,
and what if it is all behind us?
I no longer fear the rain will
never end, but doubt our ability
to return to what lies passed.
On the radar, a photopresent
scraggle of interference, as if
the data is trying to pretend
something's out there where
everything is lost.
Copyright © 2013 by Lytton Smith. Used with permission of the author.
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About This Poem
"People are always curious where a name like 'Lytton' comes from--and it's not from modernist biographer Lytton Strachey, but gothic novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He famously came up with the opening phrase (in Paul Clifford) 'It was a dark and stormy night.' But I've begun to feel guilty mentioning that; his opening sentence is actually pretty good, so
I've begun writing a whole series of poems that try to translate, rework, recuperate it."
--Lytton Smith
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